"Yes, I insist," replied he. "Will you let me stay and rest a minute? I ran round the rock and climbed pretty fast."
"Yes--do," said Susan.
The young man sat on the gra.s.s near where he had appeared, and crossed his long legs. The girl, much embarra.s.sed, looked uneasily about. "Perhaps you"d sit, too?" suggested he, after eyeing her in a friendly way that could not cause offense and somehow did not cause any great uneasiness.
Susan hesitated, went to the shadow of a little tree not far from him. He was fanning his flushed face with his hat. The collar of his shirt was open; below, where the tan ended abruptly, his skin was beautifully white. Now that she had been discovered, it was as well to be pleasant, she reasoned. "It"s a fine day," she observed with a grown-up gravity that much amused him.
"Not for fishing," said he. "I caught nothing. You are a stranger in these parts?"
Susan colored and a look of terror flitted into her eyes. "Yes,"
she admitted. "I"m--I"m pa.s.sing through."
The young man had all he could do to conceal his amus.e.m.e.nt.
Susan flushed deeply again, not because she saw his expression, for she was not looking at him, but because her remark seemed to her absurd and likely to rouse suspicion.
"I suppose you came up here to see the view," said the man. He glanced round. "It _is_ pretty good. You"re not visiting down Brooksburg way, by any chance?"
"No," replied Susan, rather composedly and determined to change the subject. "What was that song I heard you singing?"
"Oh--you heard, did you?" laughed he. "It"s the Duke"s song from "Rigoletto.""
"That"s an opera, isn"t it--like "Trovatore"?"
"Yes--an Italian opera. Same author."
"It"s a beautiful song." It was evident that she longed to ask him to sing it. She felt at ease with him; he was so unaffected and simple, was one of those people who seem to be at home wherever they are.
"Do you sing?" he inquired.
"Not really," replied she.
"Neither do I. So if you"ll sing to me, I"ll sing to you."
Susan looked round in alarm. "Oh, dear, no--please don"t," she cried.
"Why not?" he asked curiously. "There isn"t a soul about."
"I know--but--really, you mustn"t."
"Very well," said he, seeing that her nervousness was not at all from being asked to sing. They sat quietly, she gazing off at the horizon, he fanning himself and studying her lovely young face. He was somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five and a close observer would have suspected him of an unusual amount of experience, even for a good-looking, expansive youth of that age.
He broke the long silence. "I"m a newspaper man from Cincinnati.
I"m on the _Commercial_ there. My name"s Roderick Spenser. My father"s Clayton Spenser, down at Brooksburg"--he pointed to the southeast--"beyond that hill there, on the river. I"m here on my vacation." And he halted, looking at her expectantly.
It seemed to her that there was in courtesy no escape without a return biographical sketch. She hung her head, twisted her tapering fingers in her lap, and looked childishly embarra.s.sed and unhappy. Another long silence; again he broke it. "You"ll pardon my saying so, but--you"re very young, aren"t you?"
"Not so--so _terribly_ young. I"m almost seventeen," replied she, glancing this way and that, as if thinking of flight.
"You look like a child, yet you don"t," he went on, and his frank, honest voice calmed her. "You"ve had some painful experience, I"d say."
She nodded, her eyes down.
A pause, then he: "Honest, now--aren"t you--running away?"
She lifted her eyes to his piteously. "Please don"t ask me," she said.
"I shouldn"t think of it," replied he, with a gentleness in his persistence that made her feel still more like trusting him, "if it wasn"t that----
"Well, this world isn"t the easiest sort of a place. Lots of rough stretches in the road. I"ve struck several and I"ve always been glad when somebody has given me a lift. And I want to pa.s.s it on--if you"ll let me. It"s something we owe each other--don"t you think?"
The words were fine enough; but it was the voice in which he said them that went to her heart. She covered her face with her hands and released her pent emotions. He took a package of tobacco and a sheaf of papers from his trousers pocket, rolled and lighted a cigarette. After a while she dried her eyes, looked at him shamefacedly. But he was all understanding and sympathy.
"Now you feel better, don"t you?"
"Much," said she. And she laughed. "I guess I"m more upset than I let myself realize."
"Sorry you left home?"
"I haven"t any home," answered she simply. "And I wouldn"t go back alive to the place I came from."
There was a quality in the energy she put into her words that made him thoughtful. He counseled with the end of his cigarette.
Finally he inquired:
"Where are you bound for?"
"I don"t know exactly," confessed she, as if it were a small matter.
He shook his head. "I see you haven"t the faintest notion what you"re up against."
"Oh, I"ll get along. I"m strong, and I can learn."
He looked at her critically and rather sadly.
"Yes--you are strong," said he. "But I wonder if you"re strong enough."
"I never was sick in my life."
"I don"t mean that. . . . I"m not sure I know just what I do mean."
"Is it very hard to get to Chicago?" inquired she.
"It"s easier to get to Cincinnati."
She shook her head positively. "It wouldn"t do for me to go there."
"Oh, you come from Cincinnati?"
"No--but I--I"ve been there."